Theories of personality are informed from various sources
-clinical-patients that come into clinic, less scientific
-experimental- scientific tested out theories
sig and fraud- help us understand people best
way to get to truth is to do studies, make falseafiable
Clinical
-Case study- qualitative research In depth elaboration of various facets of a persons life to try to understand them
-Genie (1970)
-chained to toilet, became case study of language is invaded in us, vould she be socialized to interact with other people
-research was generated, important concept was idea of critical peropds of development f you dont have thoes things you will not develop noromally
Phineas Gage
-famous from 3ft piece of medal blown through his head
-knocked on conscious but survived
-amazing due to time period
-lost job as forman, totally diff person after accident, lost temper, lost way of planning
-drs said that he as an animal in mans body
-couldnt tell when needed to eat, when he wanted sexual pleasure would do it right thee
-case went into medcal books and came back out about 70 years laer when they were trying to understand schits
-we now look at this acidtned and learned frontal learn syndrome can happen if you dont wear seatbelt, diff planning, diff personality, much more emonitial frontal lope demention happens to some of us as we get older
-contorll over emotions can go away form age, if you drink too much,
-drink to much is like a reversable anatonomy
-
Single case CAN generalize to the population but they MAY NOT
Clinical
-interview
-structured- precise questions, very little personalization -for research
-unstructured- how did you like the notebook? Answer anyway -semi-structured – in between amount of room for answer
-open ended questions are not easy to gather or grade, get more info though
-Unstructured questions gives open ended responses
Personal records
-Content analysis
-qualitative
-suicide not analysis
in study can look at pattern of notes from different people. What was going through mind of people when they killed themselves.
Looked for positive content, I love you, ill never forget you negative content- you did this to me I hate you neutral content- totally removed mixed content- I never wanted to do this for you, you forced this on me
Most common content- positive, 51% of notes only had positive content
Second most common- neutral
Negative was only seen in 6%
Problem with clinical method
-lack of external validity
-correlation
-What if notes are not generalizable to everyone else?
-Based on correlation of logic , when you have two variables you want to see how they relate
-correlations are connections that you make to help organize your world sometimes they are wrong
-There is a negative correlation between alcohol abuse and self esteem
-The higher the abuse the lower the self esteem
-Does heavy drinking cause lower self esteem
-Do people with low self esteem drink more
-Directionality problem- don't know what direction relationship is
-Third variable problem- 2 variables and seem to be related could very well be that there is a 3rd variable that is causing relationship between those two and is better related then they are to themselves ex:man in bathroom
-old and crotchety
Experimental Science
-Gets around problems of